Hangout Fest star Grace Potter return to Lower Alabama

As Grace Potter speaks, she’s sitting on a bus parked in Brooklyn. It’s a rainy day and the people on the bus can see a group of people skateboarding in the dry space under a nearby overpass.

View full sizeHollywood RecordsGrace Potter and the Nocturnals have broken through to national attention this year, and were picked as one of Rolling Stone magazine's best new acts of 2010.

It’s a quiet moment, as she describes it. And there aren’t many of those these days for Potter and her band, the Nocturnals.

Earlier this year, Rolling Stone magazine included the act as one of its seven picks for “best new bands of 2010.” This was done partly on the strength of the band’s brand-new self-titled album, which has been winning rave reviews for its gritty, soulful rock.

In a quiet moment, Potter could consider the irony of it: The group has been together in one form or another almost eight years. They aren’t really new — just new to this kind of national-level attention.

But, again, there aren’t many of those quiet moments. Grace Potter and the Nocturnals are in demand, and that’s a good place to be.

As rare as it is to have one of Rolling Stone’s best “new” bands rolling into the BlueGill for a show, in this case it’s not simply a stroke of random luck.

Potter and the Nocturnals have been to Lower Alabama before, playing the Swamp Room under Felix’s Fish Camp and Soul Kitchen on Dauphin Street. In May they stepped up to a bigger venue, playing one of the main stages at the Hangout Beach, Music & Arts Festival.

In short, they’re not strangers.

“Mobile has been one of our big stops that we always enjoy,” Potter said. “I’m just looking forward to having a good old Southern time, is what I’m going to do.”

Memories of her appearance at the Hangout Fest are still fresh, she said.

“That was so much fun,” she said. “I think that the beach and the setting, obviously, was the first thing I noticed ... the overwhelming sense of how small we are, when you look out at an ocean. I think that’s the first thing that hit me.

“I really enjoyed being a part of such a cool community of people,” she said, referring to the oil spill that at that point was still miles offshore. “It just gave us a sense that we were all being a part of the solution, as opposed to being a part of the problem.”

With the capacity for about 500, the BlueGill obviously is a much more intimate venue. Potter was quick to say that despite the recent attention, she hasn’t outgrown such spots.

“Different size venues for me don’t create much of a challenge, because I always play a show like I’m playing in front of 15,000 people,” she said. “No matter where we are.”

A smaller venue might create some opportunities, she said. It might facilitate an acoustic set or an a cappella number. Rest assured, she’ll give it some thought.

“I always come into a town — everywhere we go, I treat a little differently,” she said. “You always have to take into account the kind of people who are going to be at the show, the kind of music they like to listen to on the radio around there. So we always try to absorb a little bit of the community before we play the show, and then I write the set list based around that.”

That said, it won’t be a surprise if Potter and the Nocturnals pull out the strongest cuts on their new album.

The album opens with the urgent “Paris.” Between the band’s insistent grind and Potter’s brassy challenge, it’s the kind of song that makes the room feel warmer:

You got me down on the floor

So what’d you bring me down here for?

You got me down on the floor

So what’d you bring me down here for

If I was a man I’d make my move

If I was a blade I’d shave you smooth

If I was a judge I’d break the law

And if I was from Paris

If I was from Paris

I would say

Ooh la la la la la la

“Oasis” takes a more mystical turn, without getting any less intense. “Medicine” would have been a fine “Rumors”-era Fleetwood Mac tune, sultry and mystical.

Potter and her music are hard to pigeonhole. Frequent comparisons to ladies as diverse as Janis Joplin, Tina Turner and Bonnie Raitt give one some idea what she’s capable of, but no idea what she actually sounds like.

One oft-quoted comparison describes the group as being akin to Aretha Franklin backed by the Velvet Underground. That scenario is difficult to picture, to say the least, but this much is true: Grace Potter has all the tools of a great Southern soul singer, even though she hails from Vermont.

The songs on “Grace Potter & the Nocturnals” are eclectic, touching on reggae and sporting a bit of country & western and folk here and there. Despite the grit, it works as pop. But one look at the group and it’s clear that they’re rockers at heart.

The album is the fruit of a new lineup that came together last March, when it appeared the Nocturnals might have fallen apart.

New bassist Catherine Popper doubles the band’s bad-girl quotient. She’s an alumna of Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, so her musical contribution also makes a strong impression. The guitar interplay between Benny Yurco and veteran Scott Tournet puts fire even in the band’s quieter songs: The two know how to play against each other.

Response to the album has been “overwhelming,” Potter said.

“I gotta say it just feels really good, and it feels like we’re finally just cresting that hill,” she said. “We had a determination and a goal. The road takes its own twists and turns and you’ve got to turn with it.”

Such serious notes will be rare at Tuesday’s show, she indicated.

“I always hope that the audience is going to want to dance,” she said. “I always love it when I dance at a show, and when I get home I still feel like dancing. I love that feeling.”